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OI^E  HUNDRED  YEARS  OF  ANTHONY  TROLLOPE 

1815—1915 


LI 


1915]  One  Hundred  Years  of  Anthonij  Trollope  927 

T^47 

In"  this  instance  the  novelist  is  more  interesting  than  his  ""^ 

novels,  superior  though  they  confessedly  are.  His  is  the  story  of 
affluence  wrested  from  penury,  high  mental  efficiency  in  spite  of 
inadequate  schooling,  the  breaking  of  the  solitary  into  society,  a 
bright  end  from  a  dark  beginning.  And  for  this  fascinating  nar- 
rative with  its  subtle  exhilaration  we  are  debtors  to  the  subject 
himself.  Other  men  may  have  analyzed  their  careers  as  thoroughly 
as  Mr.  Trollope  did  his,  but  none  of  them  ever  gave  their  findings 
with  such  stark  frankness.  Augustine's  Confessions,  on  the  one 
hand,  are  a  personal  disclosure,  it  is  true,  but  they  relate  mainly 
to  religious  experience,  while  the  Confessions  of  Rousseau  are  so 
patently  inflated  and  gilded  by  his  imaginative  genius  as  not  to  be 
reliable  for  evidence.  Then,  too,  Trollope  distinctly  deprecates 
anything  of  that  nature,  so  that  his  autobiography,  as  might  be 
anticipated,  is  entirely  different.  Hawthorne  said  that  Trollope 
cut  out  a  piece  of  the  earth  and  put  it  under  a  glass  so  you  could 
see  people  going  about  their  tasks  and  living  their  lives  all  un- 
conscious of  observation.  What  he  did  with  the  imaginary  beings 
of  his  novels  he  did  with  his  own  real  self.  He  detached  himself 
from  the  human  conglomerate.  You  see  him  at  work  and  at  play, 
the  real  Anthony  Trollope,  in  every  period  of  life,  in  every  occu- 
pation, the  motives  that  actuated  him,  his  ideals,  the  circumstances 
tending  to  the  formation  of  the  same  and  the  methods  adopted  for 
their  attainment.  If  he  is  severe  with  contemporary  writers  their 
admirers  have  the  satisfaction  that  he  was  not  a  whit  less  severe 
with  himself.  In  the  most  impersonal  way  he  reviews  and  criti- 
cises his  work  as  a  whole  and  item  by  item. 

Little  soiled  hands  stretch  appealingly  out  of  the  chapter  en- 
titled "My  Education."  Does  luckless  boyhood  make  more  piti- 
ful plea  anywhere  in  literature  ?  One  fairly  sees  him  thread- 
ing his  way  up  the  muddy  lanes  between  the  tumble-down  farm- 
house that  was  his  home  and  the  school  where  to  all  intents  he  was 


M543441 


928  Methodist  Review  [ISTovember 

a  cbaritv-pupil.  It  was  a  place  in  which  the  theories  of  Draco 
held  sway,  namely,  "Hang  a  little  boy  for  stealing  apples  and  other 
little  boys  will  not  steal  apples."  Five  scourgings  a  day  was  the 
maximum,  and  he  got  them  all.  His  teachers  knew  him  by  his 
boots  and  trousers  and  he  knew  them  by  their  ferules.  One 
shares  with  Trollope  the  resentment  which  he  cherished  for  half 
a  century  against  the  headmaster  who  stopped  him  on  the  street 
to  ask,  with  the  thunder  of  Jove  in  his  voice,  whether  it  was  pos- 
sible that  Harrow  School  was  disgraced  by  so  disreputably  dirty 
a  little  boy.  One  finds  himself  gratified,  as  Trollope  was,  in  the 
compensating  reflection  that,  while  a  kindlier  master  actually 
reached  an  archbishopric,  the  Jovistic  one  never  got  beyond  a 
deanship.  He  might  not  have  been  able  to  define  the  paradox  of 
mixing  poverty  and  gentle  standing,  but  he  felt  it,  and  it  was 
something  intolerable.  He  coveted  that  juvenile  manhood  which 
enables  some  boys  to  hold  up  their  heads.  Pity  the  isolation  of 
those  days  in  which  an  intimacy  with  the  very  boys  Avho  spurned 
him  would  have  been  his  Elysium.  The  worst  horror  of  it  all  was 
the  fixed  belief  that  the  solitude  and  poverty  of  his  boyhood  in- 
sured poverty  and  solitude  for  life.  On  the  adverse  fate  of  his 
father  the  mature  man  declares  he  often  meditated  for  hours.  It 
was  one  long  tragedy.  Finely  educated,  of  great  parts,  physically 
strong,  addicted  to  no  vices,  affectionate  by  nature,  born  to  fair  for- 
tune, yet  everything  went  wrong.  His  ill  temper  drove  clients 
from  him.  His  literary  work,  though  prodigious,  was  fatuous, 
and  his  ruinous  delusion  was  that  money  might  be  made  from 
farming  without  any  previous  training.  The  choice  at  length  was 
between  exile  and  the  debtor's  prison.  The  mournful  sequel  was 
a  grave  in  a  foreign  land.  Yet  it  is  an  open  question  whether 
Trollope  is  not,  after  all,  a  considerable  debtor  to  his  unfortunate 
father.  It  may  have  been  the  denial  of  amusement  and  gratifica- 
tion in  his  youth  which  led  him  to  the  wholesome  indulgences  of 
his  manhood.  Sight  of  his  father's  reams  of  unmarketable  manu- 
script may  have  spurred  him  to  produce  something  that  people 
would  wish  to  have  and  to  set  as  high  a  price  upon  it  as  the  market 
would  pay.  He  took  the  wooden  monks  and  nuns  of  his  father's 
illusory  ecclesiastical  encyclopaedia,  converted  them  into  bishops. 


1015]  One  Hundred  Years  of  Aiithony  Trollope  929 

deans,  rectors,  wardens,  and  gave  them  wives,  motlici's,  aunts,  and 
sweethearts,  throwing  in  a  multitude  of  other  folk  for  good 
measure. 

That  is  a  facinating  portrait  which  Trollope  frames  in  the 
chapter  which  bears  the  title  ''My  Mother."  Her  countenance  was 
the  one  illuminating  ray  of  his  eerie  boyhood.  As  if  to  give  us 
pledge  of  fidelity  in  the  sketch,  he  does  not  hesitate  to  criticize 
her.  She  affected  a  Liberal  role.  She  w^elconied  patriot  exiles 
who  had  distant  ideas  of  sacrificing  themselves  upon  the  altar  of 
liberty.  In  after  years,  however,  when  marquesses  had  been 
gracious  to  her,  she  became  a  Tory  and  thought  archduchesses 
were  sweet.  With  her,  politics  was,  at  best,  a  thing  of  the  heart. 
She  was  neither  clear-sighted  nor  accurate.  In  her  attempts  to 
describe  morals,  manners,  and  even  facts,  she  was  unable  to  avoid 
the  pitfalls  of  exaggeration.  This  apparently  undutiful  criticism 
is  more  than  offset  by  the  high  lights  upon  the  picture.  This  emo- 
tional, unlogical  woman  slipped  into  the  breach  and  retrieved  the 
ruined  fortunes  of  the  family  and,  strange  to  say,  by  the  very 
instrument  which  had  wrought  the  havoc — the  pen!  Kunning 
parallel  with  her  visible  occupation,  that  of  nurse  and  household 
manager,  was  her  invisible  calling  of  novelist,  which  she  plied 
hours  before  the  family  began  to  stir  for  the  day.  Doctors'  vials 
and  ink-bottles  were  the  symbols  of  her  double  craft.  Her  whole 
heart  was  by  the  bedside  of  the  dying  members  of  her  family,  yet 
she  continued  the  work  which  was  the  sole  means  of  providing 
comforts,  and  even  necessities.  She  divided  herself  into  two 
parts,  keeping  her  intellect  clear  from  the  trouble  of  the  world 
and  fit  for  duty.  She  was  unselfish,  afi'ectionate,  industrious,  with 
great  capacity  for  enjoyment  and  high  physical  gifts,  had  creative 
power,  considerable  humor  and  genuine  feeling  of  romance.  "She 
could  dance  with  other  people's  legs,  eat  and  drink  with  other 
people's  palates,  be  proud  with  the  luster  of  other  people's  finery. 
Any  mother  can  do  that  for  her  own  daughter,  but  she  could  do  it 
for  any  girl.  Laughter  of  those  she  loved  was  an  exquisite  pleasure 
to  her.  Of  all  people  she  was  the  most  joyous,  at  least  the  most 
capable  of  joy."  Trollope's  sketch  of  his  mother  is  a  revelation 
of  himself.     It  was  from  her  he  got  that  intimate  knowledge  of 


930  Methodist  Review  [I^ovember 

female  character,  that  discernment  of  the  trifles  which  influence 
women,  in  short,  that  characteristic  which  has  been  called  the 
feminine  element  of  his  mind.  His  very  methods  of  composition 
and  his  adroitness  in  marketing  his  wares  can  be  easily  traced  to 
his  mother's  example. 

Trollope's  facetious  saying  that  he  became  anxious  for  the 
"welfare  of  letters"  put  his  long  career  in  the  postal  service  in  a 
nutshell.  He  was  genuinely  attached  to  the  department  and 
''steeped  himself  in  postal  waters."  He  puts  his  postal  creed  in 
the  following  phrases :  That  the  public  in  little  villages  should  be 
enabled  to  buy  postage  stamps ;  should  have  their  letters  delivered 
free  and  at  an  early  hour;  that  pillar-boxes  should  be  put  up  for 
them  (he  originated  the  device  in  England)  ;  letter  carriers  and 
sorters  should  not  be  overw^orked  and  should  be  adequately  paid; 
should  have  some  hours  to  themselves,  especially  on  Sunday ; 
should  be  made  to  earn  their  wages ;  should  not  be  crushed  by  the 
damnable  system  of  so-called  merit.  That  he  ran  the  two  pro- 
fessions parallel  to  each  other  for  almost  a  life-time  illustrates  at 
once  his  versatility  and  his  industry.  He  never  used  time  which 
belonged  to  the  state  for  his  own  emolument.  He  says,  "A  man 
who  takes  public  money  without  earning  it  is  to  me  so  odious  that 
I  can  find  no  pardon  for  him  in  my  heart."  The  government 
proved  its  satisfaction  with  him  by  repeatedly  making  him  com- 
missioner to  make  postal  treaties  with  foreign  nations.  What  he 
said  of  his  work  as  a  novelist  he  might  have  said  of  his  public 
service:  "It  was  not  on  my  conscience  that  I  ever  scamped  my 
work."  When  still  a  young  man  a  relative  inclined  to  patronize 
asked  him  what  his  ambition  was.  "A  seat  in  the  House,"  was  his 
laconic  reply.  The  sarcastic  retort  was  that,  as  far  as  the  depo- 
nent's knowledge  went,  few  post-office  clerks  became  members  of 
Parliament.  That  long-remembered  taunt  no  doubt  spurred 
Trollope  on  to  his  own  political  venture.  The  outcome  of  it  was 
a  sizable  bill  for  expenses  and  a  place  at  bottom  of  the  poll,  as  his 
doctrines  were  all  "leather  and  prunella"  to  the  men  whose  votes 
he  solicited.  As  he  could  not  have  a  seat  on  the  "benches"  he  had 
to  crave  one  in  the  gallery.  Erom  that  coign  of  vantage  he  could 
tell  of  the  proceedings  almost  as  well  as  though  his  fortune  had 


1015]  One  Hundred  Years  of  AulJiojuj   Trollope  931 

allowed  him  to  fall  asleep  in  the  House  itself.  His  so-called  Par- 
liamentary Series  gives  such  insight  in  the  machinery  of  English 
government  as  no  formal  history  could  ever  afford.  Two  aphor- 
isms are  evidently  suggested  by  his  experience:  ''To  serve  one's 
country  without  pay  is  the  grandest  work  a  man  can  do,"  and,  "Of 
all  studies  the  study  of  politics  is  one  in  which  a  man  can  make 
himself  most  useful  to  his  fellow-creatures." 

No  man  of  his  times  and  craft  was  in  the  way  of  being  better 
misunderstood  than  Anthony  Trollope.  On  the  face  of  the  returns 
he  was  sordid,  extortionate  with  his  publishers,  thrusting  his  wares 
on  the  market  in  quantities  out  of  proportion  to  any  normal  gauge, 
a  public  servant,  yet  using  the  government's  time  for  private 
emolument,  and  with  it  all  a  gluttonous,  vociferous,  hound-riding, 
egotistical  pleasure-seeker.  Yet  the  story  of  his  life  as  written  by 
himself  is  in  no  sense  an  apologia.  Need  of  vindication,  explana- 
tion, or  even  extenuation  seems  not  so  much  as  to  have  crossed  his 
mind.  Some  other  reason  for  the  autobiography  must  be  sought. 
Nor  is  it  hard  to  find.  This  meat-eating,  ale-drinking  fox-hunter 
has  the  audacity  to  count  himself  actually  a  preacher  and  to  affirm 
his  novel  a  pulpit !  He  proposed  to  make  his  sacred  desk  salutary 
and  agreeable  to  his  audience,  naively  suggesting  that  ordinary 
sermons  are  not  often  thought  to  be  so.  Trollope  is  thought  to 
have  given  the  finishing  stroke  to  the  prejudice  against  novel- 
reading  as  an  immoral  practice — a  prejudice  against  which  Walter 
Scott  had  made  the  first  thrust  with  Waverly.  But  he  was  not 
willing  that  fiction  should  be  just  tolerated.  He  said,  "At  present 
there  exists  a  feeling  that  novels  at  their  best  are  but  innocent. 
They  are  read  as  men  eat  pastry  after  dinner,  not  without  some 
inward  conviction  that  the  taste  is  vain,  if  not  vicious.  It  is 
neither  vain  nor  vicious."  Again:  ''Prejudice  against  the  reading 
of  novels  is  overcome,  but  prejudice  still  exists  in  reference  to  the 
appreciation  in  which  they  are  professed  to  be  held,  and  robs  them 
of  that  high  character  which  they  may  claim  to  have  earned  by 
their  grace,  honesty  and  good  teaching."  So  far  from  being 
merely  innocent  he  looked  upon  the  novel  as  a  school  for  manners 
and  morals.  He  realized  the  all  but  universal  hearing  that  might 
be  obtained.     He  said,  "If  I  can  teach  politicians  that  they  can 


932  Methodist  Review  [ITovember 

do  their  business  better  by  truth  than  by  falsehood  I  do  a  great 
service,  but  it  is  done  to  a  limited  number  of  persons.  But  if  I 
can  make  young  men  and  women  believe  that  truth  in  love  will 
make  them  happy,  then,  if  my  writings  be  popular,  I  shall  have  a 
very  large  class  of  pupils."  He  freely  gave  the  palm  to  poetry 
as  the  highest  style  of  literature,  but  at  the  same  time  realized  the 
comparative  smallness  of  its  clientage  compared  with  fiction,  and 
believed  the  latter  to  be  the  greater  teacher  because  it  could  spread 
the  truth  much  wider.  The  masses  do  not  read  the  great  poets, 
or,  reading  them,  often  miss  their  message  at  least  in  part.  Con- 
scious of  the  power  the  novelist  wields  by  reason  of  his  wider 
hearing,  he  proposed  to  impregnate  the  mind  of  the  novel-reader 
with  the  feeling  that  ''truth  prevails  where  falsehood  fails;  that 
a  girl  will  be  loved  as  she  is  pure  and  sweet  and  unselfish ;  that  a 
man  will  be  honored  in  proportion  as  he  is  true,  honest,  and  brave ; 
that  things  meanly  done  are  odious,  and  things  nobly  done  beau- 
tiful and  gracious." 

It  is  one  of  the  paradoxes  of  literature  that  this  burly,  bluster- 
ing, aggressive  man  should  treat  the  feminine  character  with  so 
deft  and  gentle  a  hand  and  portray  the  tender  passion  in  both  sexes 
with  a  perfect  fidelity.  He  treats  of  love  with  absolute  frankness. 
He  intends  that  girls  shall  know  from  him  what  to  expect  when 
lovers  come,  and  young  men  what  may  be  the  charms  of  love.  His 
lovers  long  for  each  other  and  are  not  ashamed  to  say  so.  He 
thinks  that  the  honest  love  of  an  honest  man  is  a  treasure  which 
a  good  girl  may  fairly  hope  to  win.  Yet  it  would  have  been  his 
horror  if  word  of  his  had  polluted  the  "sweet  young  hearts  whose 
delicacy  and  cleanliness  of  thought  is  matter  of  pride  with  us." 
He  was  very  zealous  not  to  lend  attraction  to  the  sin  which  he 
indicated.  It  gave  him  greatest  satisfaction  to  believe  that  no  girl 
could  rise  from  the  reading  of  his  pages  less  modest  than  she  was 
before,  and  that  some  had  been  even  taught  and  strengthend  in 
modesty.  He  said,  "If  I  have  not  made  the  strength  and  virtue 
predominate  over  the  faults  and  vice  I  have  not  painted  the  picture 
as  I  intended."  His  aim  was  to  portray  sin  so  that  the  girl  who 
reads  shall  say,  "O !  Not  like  that ;  let  me  not  be  like  that !"  and 
that  every  youth  shall  say,  "Let  me  not  have  such  a  one  as  that  to 


1015]  One  Hundred  Years  of  Antho7iij  TroUope  933 

press  to  my  bosom!  Anything  but  that!"  But  Trollope  did  not 
merely  hold  a  brief  to  virtue,  he  was  a  zealous  and  ettective  pleader 
for  all  moral  qualities.  He  says  admirably,  ''In  these  times,  when 
the  desire  to  be  honest  is  pressed  so  hard  by  the  ambition  to  be 
great ;  in  which  riches  are  the  easiest  road  to  greatness ;  when  the 
temptations  to  which  men  are  subjected  dull  their  eyes  to  the  per- 
fected iniquities  of  others,  it  is  so  hard  for  a  man  to  decide  vigor- 
ously that  the  pitch  so  many  are  handling  will  defile  him  if  touched, 
men's  conduct  will  be  actuated  much  by  that  which  is  depicted  to 
them  as  leading  to  glorious  or  inglorious  results."  As  one  reads 
sentiments  like  these  the  scarlet  coat  of  hound-rider  dissolves  and 
the  somber  frock  of  preacher  replaces  it.  Trollope  has  achieved 
in  the  reader  the  chief  aim  of  his  biography;  namely,  the  justifi- 
cation of  his  profession  as  a  novelist. 

As  a  preacher  prizes  opportunities  to  preach,  and  omits  none, 
Trollope  allowed  no  abatement  in  the  volume  of  his  homilies  of 
fancy.  But,  realizing  also  that  no  one  feels  it  a  duty  to  read  a 
novel  as  one  does  a  volume  of  history  or  science,  he  deliberately 
proposed  to  win  readers  by  giving  them  pleasure.  He  never  risked 
being  dull  in  order  to  be  profound.  He  said  sententiously,  "Of 
all  needs  a  book  has  the  chief  is  that  it  be  readable,"  and,  "A 
novelist  must  write  because  he  has  a  story  to  tell  and  not  because 
he  has  to  tell  a  story."  By  habitually  ruling  out  the  extraneous 
he  avoided  the  pitfall  of  the  pulpit.  He  admitted  no  sentence,  not 
even  any  word,  that  did  not  directly  tend  to  the  main  object  in 
view.  Another  winning  quality  is  his  lucidity.  His  pages  are 
pellucid.  This  was  not  by  chance,  or  just  the  fortunate  trait  of 
his  mind.  Like  ]\lacaulay,  he  made  it  his  study  and  aim.  Again, 
he  was  a  finished  observer  of  human  life.  He  took  daily  and  minute 
toll  of  his  fellows,  not  that  he  might  make  literal  transcripts  of 
them;  he  flatly  denies  that  in  any  instance  he  ever  did  this;  but 
that  he  might  know  how  under  given  conditions  certain  characters 
would  inveterately  act.  He  proposed  to  give  a  picture  of  common 
life  enlivened  with  humor  and  sweetened  with  pathos.  Thus  he 
was  beforehand  with  color-photography  by  half  a  century.  He 
caught  the  moral  tints  as  well  as  lights  and  shades,  on  the  one  hand, 
of  the  English  cathedral  close  and  its  unique  population,  which 


\ 


934:  Methodist  Revieiu  [November 

has  ever  since  and  steadily  been  fading  from  current  life;  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  of  the  English  Parliament,  which  also  is  suffer- 
ing its  mutations. 

Well  may  William  Dean  Howells  pronounce  Anthony 
Trollope  a  profound  moralist ;  and  Leslie  Stephen  call  him  sturdy, 
wholesome,  kindly;  and  Walter  Savage  Landor  admire  him  for 
his  unaffected  openness ;  and  Hawthorne  declare  his  novels  to  be 
solid;  and  Mrs.  Oliphant  say  that  the  best  of  him  will  be  in- 
scribed in  the  social  annals  of  England;  and  Escott  predict  that 
among  the  leading  literary  features  of  the  twentieth  century  will 
be  a  permanent  revival  of  popular  interest  in  the  novels  and  in  the 
man  who  wrote  them. 


/ht^tn^  ^.    (^^5-:;::^^"' 


\ 


Syracuse,  N.  Y. 
Stcclilon,  CM- 


IV1543441 


^r?t} 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 

Return  to  desk  from  which  borrowed. 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


13Mar'5?WB 

ar'52WB 
my  I  3  195; 
,       26Apr'b7BP 

APD121957 


JUN  4    1957     N 
^EC'D  LD 

JUN3   1957 


JUL  1 1 1960 

"'^?9^§?^    4| 


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